Security Agents can use one of two scan methods when scanning for security threats.
  • Smart scan: Security Agents that use smart scan are referred to as smart scan agents in this document. Smart scan agents benefit from local scans and in-the-cloud queries provided by File Reputation Services.
  • Conventional scan: Security Agents that do not use smart scan are referred to as conventional scan agents. A conventional scan agent stores all components on the endpoint and scans all files locally.
The following table provides a comparison between the two scan methods.

Conventional Scan and Smart Scan Compared

Basis of Comparison
Conventional Scan
Smart Scan
Scanning behavior
The conventional scan agent performs scanning on the client.
  • The smart scan agent performs scanning on the client.
  • If the Security Agent cannot determine the risk of the file during the scan, the Security Agent verifies the risk by sending a scan query to the Trend Micro Smart Protection Network.
  • The Security Agent "caches" the scan query result to improve the scan performance.